Petit Lenormand Love Relationships – Part I

Today’s topic is all about petit Lenormand love relationships: how people relate to each other in relationships, how you can tell a couple is about to break up, how to tell if two people are secretly smitten with each other, if there’s a love triangle, or if their love is fickle…

Relationship combinations with the Petit Lenormand

First and foremost, you have to be able to recognize combinations that indicate a relationship of some sort. The most simple combination is evidently one where the heart card is found between two subject cards. So:

Man – Heart – Woman

or

Court Card – Heart – Court Card

That works very well, usually, but depending on whether you’re using a string to answer your question, or if you’re reading a Grand Tableau, the odds are that you won’t see that specific combination every time you need to know about a relationship. And trust me, when someone comes to you, they expect you to know..!

Basic rules for recognizing interactions between people:

1) Look for joiner cards

Cards like the Ring, the Heart, the Dog, the Sun, the Scythe, the Anchor etc., all tell you something about two people, especially when they are found in between the Man and Woman card, or other court cards. Joiner cards give important clues as to what kind of relationship they find themselves in:

The Ring would mean a legal obligation, either through marriage, or a contractual agreement. It is by no means a guarantee of love, but is a very binding commitment.

The Anchor might mean a relationship where two people stay together as long as the relationship suits them. I see a lot of common law couples with the Anchor between them, where either person can just take their tooth brush and leave.

The Dog, a good and loyal friendship. There is a lot of trust between the two.

The most obvious is of course the Heart card, which signifies attraction, passion, and love.

2) In a Grand Tableau (9×4, or 8×4+4), look to see how close two cards are in relation with each other.

The man and woman card are usually the two cards you will be looking for. If they aren’t near each other, then you need to seriously consider if other cards are actually hinting at a relationship or at celibacy.

For example, the Woman card might not be close to the Man card, but it is close to another court card with some interesting joiner cards. Or, there might just not be ANYTHING, in which case there might not be a relationship to speak of.

In a Grand Tabelau, if the man and woman cards aren’t close to each other, but closer to other court cards, then you need to consider that something interesting might be going on. Either there’s an affair (usually we’ll see a more distant man or woman card in relation with the querrent, and the heart [passion] between the distant partner and another court card), or something that is preventing the two from being closer together. Sometimes a couple might be strong, but in a busy phase where the querrent might be feeling lonely (work is getting in the way, a business trip, a soldier away on a mission). It is very very important to be discrete and ask questions. You do not want to upset your querrent! There is a lot on the line, and you might be upsetting more than one person with your interpretation and jumping to the wrong conclusions.

I’ve had a look around on your site to see if you have examples of 9 card layouts but cant see anything. I am currently practicing using this layout but would like some help with how you would read it. Some have said 1st line is the past second is the present and 3rd is the future others just say read the whole thing as one story, im trying to find one way of reading and not mix up different methods.

Hi Sue..! Good catch on the 9 card (3X3) layout, I will have to add something soon..!

In my opinion, reading a 3X3 spread is a lot like reading the Grand Tableau. If you go to my article Basic Guidelines for Reading with the Petit Lenormand, you’ll find some information that you can use to directly read the 3X3, based on how to read the Tableau. Everyone has their particular style, and there’s no right or wrong way to go about it, really. Myself, I normally use the columns to represent past present future, and I then use the rows to indicate influence (whether someone has control over events or not). If the Man / Woman, or a court card isn’t present to represent someone, then I usually keep to Past|Present|Future as my columns. If a person card does fall in the spread, then I tend to read the column that card falls in as that card’s present. Others will always read the columns or lines as a fixed set to mean past/present/future, irrespective of where a person card falls.

What you need to remember is to take your time and analyze each pair, and build up your story. The biggest people make in my opinion is reading things too quickly. Lumping everything together too quickly.

If I may make a suggestion, join us on the Forum. People use the 3X3 in practice sessions all the time, and you might benefit from the exchanges. You can also check some of the advanced techniques (i.e.,: Diagonals, Knighting, and Mirroring) and apply them quite well to the 3X3.

I am now a pretty confident reader except I am still struggling slightly with the man woman cards. I tend to use my intuition more but In the nine card spread how do I know if the card is representing the querant or someone else. I am using Titania cards. Thank you for information.

Generally, I’ve always applied the same rules whenever I read my cards. So if I see the woman card, I usually always associate it with the person I am reading for, if I’m reading for a woman (same with the Man card when reading for a man). If, however, I am reading for someone and the opposite sex card show up, I usually equate it as someone important in the person’s life / in the situation (depending on the question).

So keeping it simple: If reading for a man, then the Woman card is someone of particular importance to the reading. Read the cards around it for more clues.

Well it depends on what type of reading you’re doing. If you’re reading a GT bad cards are close to the family card, it is obvious. However, when you have an absence of good cards around something, it might be good or bad. Really, it might be best to practice with people on the forum to get a better idea.